Augustine of Canterbury

Augustine of Canterbury (died 26 May 604 AD) was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 601 to 26 May 604, preceding Laurence of Canterbury. He is often considered to be the founder of the Church of England as the Benedictine monk who brought Christianity to the pagan Anglo-Saxons of the British Isles.

Biography
Augustine was born in Italia, and he was the prior of a monastery in Rome when Pope Gregory I chose him in 595 to lead a mission to the British Isles to Christianize King Aethelbert of Kent and the Kingdom of Kent from Anglo-Saxon paganism; Aethelbert had just married the daughter of the Frankish King Charibert I, a Christian. In 597, Augustine arrived on the Isle of Thanet and then headed to the Kentish capital of Canterbury, where he converted King Aethelbert, who allowed the Christian mission to preach freely and gave them lands for a monastery. Instead of ordering Augustine to destroy pagan temples, Pope Gregory had Augustine remove the pagan idols, bless the edifice with holy water, and put the relics of the saints in the place of pagan cult objects; within years, the former pagans replaced their worship of many gods with their veneration of many saints. In 597, Augustine converted thousands during a mass baptism on Christmas Day, and Pope Gregory soon sent further missionaries to Britain. Bishops were established at London and Rochester, and Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in 601. He arranged the consecration of his successor, Laurence of Canterbury, before dying in 604.